FAIRBANKS – It’s been a week of fun, competition and camaraderie in Fairbanks for the Arctic Winter Games.

The closing ceremony on Saturday culminated the week of events that brought in athletes from around the circumpolar north.

“Fairbanks can be very proud of what we’ve accomplished this week and the athletes themselves have been remarking this is a very great experience and they love the atmosphere here in our community,” said Jeff Jacobson, the Host Society Board President.

“Fun is not the word for it; it’s incredible excitement and our community ahs turned out,” said Fairbanks-North Star Borough Mayor, Luke Hopkins. “The whole state has turned out. It’s not just our community. The volunteers are here and they’re fulfilling the roles that make this the incredible Arctic Winter Games they are.”

More than 2,000 athletes took over the Golden Heart City for the games and Fairbanks will be sad to see them go.

“Fairbanks is going to be a little depressed come Monday morning when everything’s back to normal and we’ve had such a weeklong party here with so many things to do and see and experience,” Jacobson says.

“Arctic Winter Games was a lot of fun this year. This is my fourth and final games as an athlete. I met a lot of really awesome people so it’s going to be hard to say goodbye,” said Team Alaska member Christina Glenzel.

Unlike the opening ceremony where the athletes come out with their team, at the closing ceremony they all enter the arena together.

“It’s cool cause you can find your friends and say goodbye. You come here as a team but you leave as a bunch of friends,” Glenzel says.

Fairbanks passed the Arctic Winter Games flag to the mayor of Nuuk, Greenland, and many of the athletes will be happy to compete there in 2016.

FAIRBANKS – It’s the most painful and physically taxing sport of the Inuit games: The knuckle hop.

“The first 10 feet or so, you forget you’re on your knuckles. They go completely numb,” explained Nick Hanson, a member of Team Alaska from Unalakleet. “The pain from doing the hops on your knuckles goes away and then it’s just a matter of going as far as you can.”

“For myself, I’m so in the zone that I don’t really feel anything while I’m going,” added Casey Ferguson from Chevak. “I think that I’ll feel in the pain in my knuckles but the adrenaline kicks in and all the endorphins kick in and it’s just a test of endurance for me.”

Arctic Winter Games competitors said it’s not just the spirit of competition that drives them, but also the desire to get back to their Native traditions.

“You want to represent as much culture as you possibly can. Back in our ancestors’ days, this is what they would do to prove who’s the strongest,” Hanson said.

Men positioned themselves in a push-up type position on their knuckles. They hop along a line on the gym floor at Lathrop High School, pushing with their feet as well. The knuckle hop was also used as a hunting technique.

“I love it because of what it represents,” Hanson said. “When you’re out on the ice when you’re trying to catch a seal and you’ve got a spear on your back, you want to mimic that seal’s movements. So you knuckle hop as close as you can so you can strike.”

It’s an incredible feat of strength and pain tolerance. Not matter how much it hurts while they were going, athletes said the real pain set in when it was over.

“Your knuckles are peeled open and you’re bleeding and you have to peel the skin off. That’s the worst part,” Ferguson laughed.

Hanson won gold, hopping 128 feet and seven inches, almost the entire way around the gym.

“When you’re finished, you’re pretty much just relieved. You just want to lay there,” he said. “The judges let you lay there because they know how hard you just got done going. You lay there for a minute and just catch your breath. After you get up, the pain sets in.”

“Go wash your hands first then we’ll get you fixed up,” said volunteer medic Wilma Vinton. She had no idea she’d be so busy; this was her first time seeing the knuckle hop competition.

“I can’t believe the strength they have to be able to do it. But yeah, what they’re doing to their knuckles is pretty ugly,” Vinton said.

She rubbed antibiotic ointment on the wounds and bandaged them up.

“Some have worn it clear down to the cartilage. You can see the bone and the cartilage,” she explained.

A little TLC and competitors can rest their knuckles until the next Arctic Winter Games when they’ll be back for more brutality.

Photo courtesy Arctic Winter Games

ANCHORAGE - Bringing people together is a cornerstone of the Arctic Winter Games, and a social media storm surrounding the week-long event is furthering that goal.

Including Alaska, nine contingents across the circumpolar north are gathered in Fairbanks, competing in events that range from ancestral traditions to sports like basketball and table tennis.

Two thousand young athletes are participating, but they’re also taking time to tweet, Facebook and post photos to Instagram in a way that’s hard to miss if you’re following the games. When they’re in full swing during the day, you can expect a tweet or retweet on the AWG 2014 account every couple minutes.

It’s what Andrew Cassel, co-chairman of the social media committee for AWG, said he hoped would happen.

Also the multimedia coordinator at University of Alaska Fairbanks, Cassel started hashing out a social media strategy for the games about a year ago, he said.

Cassel said he wanted to incorporate all the best parts of social media to “let more people around the world know what these games are.”

Beyond educating people who live outside the circumpolar north, Cassel said he also wanted to connect competitors from the eight other contingents with their friends and family members back home.

It seems to be working. On Facebook, analytics indicate a large chunk of people perusing the social media platform are based in places like Greenland and Canada, Cassel said.

On Instagram, it’s mostly the participants who are posting square-shaped, vintage-looking photos and videos, he said.

But what’s been the real success, Cassel said, is the use of the games’ hashtag, #AWG2014.

By Friday morning, there were more than 3,000 Instagram pictures that used the #AWG2014. The published posts feature everything from medal selfies to athletes in action to memorabilia snapshots. The tweets are too vast to count. An official AWG pin with the hashtag on it epitomizes the social media focus of this year’s games.

Cassel and the participants are by no means alone in their social media endeavors. About 30 volunteers, who work in four-hour shifts, are assisting too, Cassel said. They watch the games, tweet and take pictures.

Contingents also have media liaisons with fast-moving fingers to help.

Kennis Brady, the Team Alaska media liaison, said a social media outpouring is inevitable when you get a bunch of young people in close quarters for an extended period of time.

But it’s a positive frenzy, she said. With venues that are spread out and a jam-packed schedule, social media helps keep competitors, spectators and families plugged in.

Maya Narang, 16, and Grace Lee, 14, are figure skating medalists for Team Alaska and avid tweeters, they said. They’ve also been posting plenty on Facebook and Twitter, sharing their experiences at the Arctic Winter Games with friends and family.

For Maya and Grace, making new friends from other countries is one of the best aspects of the games, they said. And social media will help them stay in touch long after the games are over.